Can H1 and Meta title be exactly the same ?
-
I've heard from some SEO's that H1 and Meta Title shouldn't be exactly the same, why ?
Both of them describe what is ON the page right ? Why is it Spammy? Is it ?
-
Given the fine responses to the question, both vis a vis SEO and without considering SEO, do limits exist to the length of the H1 tag similar to the Title tag, which many say to should be between the max 65 and 70 characters to display in the SERPS?
Finding different ways to describe the same subject in a succinct way can be difficult and time-consuming, so I wonder how much time to spend on different H1 and Title text -- not to mention FB and other metadata for that page.
Tangentially, I have noticed that shorter Titles often have the site name appended, and I am not sure that is always a good thing -- especially when words can be duplicated. For example: "Why Live in London" can have the site name "- London Accommodations" auto-appended.
Thank you
-
I have tested for this, my initial test does not address user experience of course but that would be easy to test for - but if you're looking for what seems to work in google - my advise it to run your own test. If anyone is interested in follow up testing - please feel free to PM me.
-
Thank you all for your comments, now I get it, It's not that it's spammy or that it can get me into trouble, it's just that I could really use them both better if I try to optmize them both separately. Thanks, God I love Moz's Community ! Thank you !
-
The H1 and Title Tag can be the same but the issue that comes into play is whether or not the H1 tag provide a good user experience for the onsite content if it is the same as the Title Tag.
Take this post's Title Tag for example "Can H1 and Meta title be exactly the same ? Why not ? | Moz Q&A". If you put that as the full H1 it would not be as good as:
Can H1 and Meta title be exactly the same?
or
Can H1 and Meta title be exactly the same ? Why not ?
-
Exactly! You won't be penalized, but your competition will probably make better use of both elements as individual opportunities, and then you'll be outranked.
-
Agreed here on Monica's answer directly above....this is what should be done, eh!
-
I agree with Valeria completely. To elaborate, your title should read like a newspaper heading, and your H1 tag can be more descriptive and detailed. To make them exactly the same means that one of them will not be used to their full optimization potential. The two things should work together. I have always used by H1 tag to expand on my title tag, for example:
Title - Generac 6244 | 20kW Generator | 200a ATS Package
H1 - Generac 6244 Guardian Series 20kW Home Standby Generator with **200a Automatic Transfer Switch **
-
It's not necessarily spammy, but you're just not making the most of your h1 and not optimising your site properly if you do leave them the same. Ultimately, the two serve totally different functions when you remove the SEO element.
Your h1 is to let people know what your page is about when they're already on the site - often, the h1 and the link in your menu is the same which helps build continuity and ensure that people get to the content they're looking for (although there may be slight differences).
Your meta title lets people know what that page is about _before _they get to your site - it's important that you provide them with more information about who you are and why they should go to your page over the other results on there. For example, if you are a leather clothing boutique in London, your h1 may be Leather Trousers. But your searcher is looking for a physical location and wants to try before they buy.... your page appears on a load of search results where people are saying things like Leather Trousers | Ethical British Leather | London (or similar - and that example is too long but you get my drift) and your result simply says 'Leather Trousers' - who do you think gets the click?
Now, when you add the SEO element back in, by not optimising your meta title you're just squandering the opportunity to let search engines know more about your page and your business. Since good SEO consists of lots of building blocks rather than one big thing, those squandered opportunities quickly add up.
-
I don't think it's s a problem for you but there's more info here: http://moz.com/community/q/why-should-your-title-and-h1-tag-be-different
-
I do not believe that having the same text in h1 and title tag could cause any issues. For example we can see a lot of Wordpress websites rank where the title wasn't rewritten. There in most of the cases H1 and Title tag are exactly the same. (or differ only in a | Brand in the title)
That's a personal opinion.
Gr., Keszi
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can I create a new Website to promote just one set of services from a list of several services?
Hi, I have a 10 years old website, where I promote all my services - around 30 of them under 5 main categories. For example, my current website promotes these services. A service - with a1, a2, a3 services B service - with b1, b2, b3 services C service - with c1, c2, c3 services D service - with d1, d2, d3 services E service - with e1, e2, e3 services Now I want to promote just "A service" with its sub-services into a separate website, as that service is in demand now and also those keywords should be my main keywords. I want to connect my old website with the new one, to increase the trust among users. Can I do this? I hope I am not violating any Google rules by doing this. Please help with suggestions. Thanks. Jessi.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Sudsat0 -
Besides description and design optimization, is there any other main factor that we can influence to get better App Store rankings?
Hi there! I do love SEO, the cracking Web Search engine, but when it comes to other Google's search engines like Youtube and Apps Store it's an unknown field for me.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Gaston Riera
So, i'm diving into App Store Optimization, ASO. This is my question: Besides the text and the design in the description of the app, is there any other factor that we can manipulate or influence?(such as linkbuilding, social media or alien magic hehe). Thanks a lot!
GR.0 -
Can a Self-Hosted Ping Tool Hurt Your IP?
Confusing title I know, but let me explain. We are in the middle of programming a lot of SEO "action" tools for our site. These will be available for users to help better optimize their sites in SERPs. We were thinking about adding a "Ping" tool based in PHP so users can ping their domain and hopefully get some extra attention/speed up indexing of updates. This would be hosted on a subdomain of our site. My question is: If we get enough users using the product, could that potentially get us blacklisted with Google, Bing etc? Technically it needs to send out the Ping request, and that would be coming from the same IP address that our main site is hosted on. If we end up getting over a 1000 users all trying to send ping requests I don't want to potentially jeopardize our IP. Thoughts?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | David-Kley0 -
Sometimes our meta description being displayed is not ours?
We just launched our new website a week ago (also switched to Wordpress). Yesterday I noticed that sometimes our homepage Meta Description displays something different in Google results than what we have set. I had others confirm the same result on their computers. I asked all who have been involved with marketing for company if that description was ever used for the company, as it seemed odd and worded very strange. No one has ever seen this or used this on any of our listings, social profiles etc ever. I check my meta descriptions set for home page and they were still correct. Also did a view source for cache page by Google and it showed the correct Meta Description. Still confused, I did an exact match search on the description and came up with about 30+ spam/link farm type of websites with this odd description noted by our name along with a link back to us. We never asked or paid for these. Why are they there? And how could this influence our homepage meta description? This has me very concerned that we might already be getting hacked. I see no other issues with the site. Looking for any help regarding: Why is the odd meta description showing up sometimes? Why do we have backlinks from these random sites? Is this all connected? Maybe trackbacks and pingbacks? Any help you can provide me is appreciated. Thanks! whJRuuQ
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | pac-cooper0 -
Is it okay to use hiddencontaining meta information that is a video transcript?
I have been using the tools at DotSub.com to transcribe our YouTube videos. They are free, work really great and I highly recommend them. Today I received an email from DotSub with recommendations for SEO on video. I have a question about #5 on their list. Here it is: "Step 5: Embed the video transcript into the non-visible meta-data of the page" "Always embed the video transcript in the page meta-data This is done by placing
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | danatanseo
the content of the transcription within a non-visible HTML element (a hidden
div). While most search engines do not weight non-visible content as high as
visible content, this will still provide additional SEO for your page. Do
this whether you include the full transcript visibly on your page or not." This is something I have never heard before. And, like many of you, I have always heard that putting anything "hidden" in the HTML is a very bad idea. Is this different? Do any of you do this? Is it really a recommended technique? Thanks all! Dana0 -
Geotag city different from postal address. Can I mention both cities together in title tags?
This boundary thing seems to be haunting me at the mo. Oh what I'd give for somewhere within a defined boundary! Anyway, just noticed a client has one city in its official postal address, and another city under its geotag. So I'm looking at the title tags and I'm thinking of mentioning both cities on the main entry pages (6 of them) then dividing mention in sub pages. Is this acceptable to Google? Might they see mention of both cities in homepage title tag (and other entry pages) as spammy. I don't want to upset Google!!! PS. Both cities are core markets. I would say they're of equal importance in terms of current business bookings and business potential.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Big loss in Google traffic recently, but can't work out what the problem is
Since about May 17 my site - http://lowcostmarketingstrategies.com - has suffered a big drop in traffic from Google, presumed from the dreaded Penguin update. I am at a loss why I have been hit when I don't engage in any black hat SEO tactics or do any link building. The site is high quality, provides a good experience for the user and I make sure that all of the content is unique and not published elsewhere. The common checklist of potential problems from Penguin (such as keyword stuffing, web spam and over optimisation in general) don't seem relevant to my site. I'm wondering if someone could take a quick look at my site to see any obvious things that need to be removed to get back in Google's good books. I was receiving around 200 - 250 hits per day, but that has now dropped down to 50 - 100 and I fee that I have been penalised incorrectly. Any input would be fantastic Thanks 🙂
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ScottDudley0 -
Can good penalize a site, and stop it ranking under a keyword permanently
hi all we recently took on a new client, asking us to improve there google ranking, under the term letting agents glasgow , they told us they used to rank top 10 but now are on page 14 so it looks like google has slapped them one, my question is can google block you permanently from ranking under a keyword or disadvantage you, as we went though the customers links, and removed the ones that looked strange, and kept the links that looked ok. but then there ranking dropped to 21, is it worth gaining new links under there main keyword even tho it looks like google is punishing them for having some bad links. the site is www. fine..lets...ltd...co....uk all one word cheers
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | willcraig0